


Crescent Nebula

by SadinaSaphrite



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Racism, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, N7 Day, Pre-Reaper War, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 07:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16551842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadinaSaphrite/pseuds/SadinaSaphrite
Summary: Sometimes, the best way to become friends is through a series of rescue missions.





	Crescent Nebula

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this years ago, but N7 Day has me all nostalgic this year, so I'm sharing it. Just a blurb on how some of my Mass Effect OCs, the crew of the Crescent Nebula, first met.

Another explosion rocked the ship, knocking Sevrek to his knees. Without missing a beat, Vitana turned and grabbed him, hauling the turian back to his feet.

“What’s hitting us?” She shouted over the wailing alarms.

“Some sort of plasma beam,” Sevrek took the lead and sprinted down the corridor, red with warning lights, and his sister on his heels. 

“It means whatever’s hitting us is very close, though it’s hard to tell without seeing the actual beam or the readings from-” he broke off as the ship rocked again and the alarms took on a new tone. “Quick! They’ve taken down the shields!”

Sevrek and Vitana ran with renewed vigor, sprinting for the escape pods on the unarmed trade ship the two turians had bartered passage on.

“It’s probably pirates,” Sevrek continued, even as they ran for their lives, rambling in his nervousness. “They’ll want to space us all and then salvage anything left over. If we don’t hurry we’ll-”

A horrible sound tore through the ship, a combination of squealing metal, the drone of an energy beam, and screams.

“Hull breached,” warned an inappropriately calm VI voice over the intercom.

The turians sprinted into the hall that connected to the escape pods, and Sevrek winced when he saw how very few of them had been jettisoned, considering the number of people on board. He threw himself into the nearest pod, Vitana behind him, and reached to hit the switch that would seal and launch them into space. 

“Wait!” Vitana’s shout made Sevrek freeze a clawtip away from the release switch.

“Why?”

She leaned out of the escape pod, waving frantically. “Over here!”

“Vitana, what are you doing? Get back inside!”

“This way!” she continued to shout at someone Sevrek couldn’t see. “Hurry! This ship’s about to blow!”

She scrambled back into the pod, a hulking krogan following her in. Sevrek slammed the release the moment they were both inside and the pod tore away from the dying ship.

“Are you okay?” Vitana asked the krogan.

“Yeah. …Thanks,” the krogan grumbled. He was about the size of an average krogan, which meant he towered over both the turians and took up over half of the small escape pod. His skin was a dull, fleshy yellow and his brow ridge was black, gleaming like obsidian. He wore full battle armor of black and orange, and the krogan seemed to be examining Sevrek as closely as he was examining the krogan. Finally, he sneered at Sevrek’s disapproving look. Sevrek tightened his mandibles into a scowl. 

“A damn krogan? You risked both our lives for a-” Sevrek was cut off as an alarm burst into life in the small pod, beeping shrilly.

“Sevrek, outside!”

He looked out one of the pod’s tiny windows, seeing what he expected to see: the dying trade ship, the pirate ship (a batarian vessel, he noted), and some planet he didn’t recognize, close enough that they almost could have been in orbit. A bright blue light burst from a weapon on the pirate ship’s bow, glowing for a moment before blossoming into a rapidly growing sphere, overtaking the pirate ship, the trade ship, and quickly gaining on their little pod.

“It’s some sort of mass effect field!” Vitana shouted over the alarm. “And it’s—Eeeek!”

The sphere had grown large enough to envelop them, and all the controls went wild, thrusters starting and stopping, lights flickering, gravity failing, and even their Omni-tools went berserk. As quickly as it started, it stopped. Then all the controls went dead, leaving their lifeless pod drifting toward the planet below.

For a long moment, they only thing the trio could hear was the sound of their own breathing. Then a dull, crackling roar grew around them as the pod started its descent into the atmosphere.

“Well, shit,” Sevrek heard the krogan say.

Then it was too loud to hear anything.

* * *

Torq didn’t remember the crash. That was unfortunate. It’s not often someone could say they had been in an uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry in a dead escape pod that was built to be picked up by passing ships, not land on its own. He would have liked to cherish the experience so his bragging could be more authentic and accurate. As things stood, he’d have to piece together what had happened himself. He’d remembered the turians, the weird mass effect field, the pod going dead, falling into the atmosphere…then the pod had become unbearably hot, he’d been unable to hear his own voice over the sound of re-entry, unable to smell anything over the reek of burning metal. Next he knew, he was here, under the rubble of the broken escape pod.

He tried to move and pain erupted across his body like…well, like he had been dropped from space onto a rock in a half ton of burning metal. Torq began to move very carefully, slowly evaluating how badly he was hurt. He was breathing with his secondary lungs and only one of his hearts was beating. His bones felt like they had shattered and been put back together, but if that meant they had actually broken and been knitted by his heightened healing or if they only felt that way was a mystery to him. Everything else just hurt, and there was no use trying to get any more detail out of that. He wasn’t dead, so that was something. He could also move, and that was something else. With a roar that brought blood up out of his lungs, he pushed the wreckage off of himself and clambered to his feet.

Once upright, the world slipped out of focus and the corners of his vision went black. But Torq was krogan, and a little thing like blood loss and organ failure wasn’t going to keep him down. He shook his head to clear it, stamped his feet, snorted, and took a good look at his surroundings. He was standing on the far end of a long, narrow crater. The pod must have struck at an angle and skidded for a ways before resting here. He couldn’t see anything but dust and dirt that ranged from red to grey and the wreckage of the pod, scattered all through the shallow crater.

Boring. Hopefully, there was some form of sentient life that could get him off this rock. He didn’t have many credits, but he could sell his services as a fighter. If he couldn’t barter passage he could always fall back to threatening someone with—his gun! He hadn’t noticed the bare spot on his back where his shotgun normally rested until he had thought about it. Now, however, he realized both his guns were missing. 

They must have come off during the crash. If he dug through the wreckage, he would surely find them. A brief, but thorough rummage through the more concentrated remains of the escape pod revealed only a single pistol of turian make, smashed beyond repair. No sign of his shotgun or assault rifle. Torq looked out over the debris-riddled crater. Maybe his guns were somewhere out in all that mess. After all, it’s not like they got up and walked away. 

Movement in the crater caught his eye. Well, well. Speaking of not being able to walk away…

One of the turians that had been in the escape pod with him was sprawled amid the rubble, about halfway across the crater. With no weapons and no idea how to get off this planet, Torq decided he might as well see if the turian was dying and ambled toward it.

As he got closer, Torq could see it was the male turian, the one who had been an ass toward him in the escape pod. He slowed his pace a little, deciding maliciously that he was in no real rush.

A good portion of the turian’s armor had been torn right off his body from the impact, and the rest was cracked, crushed, or dented. He was covered crest to toe in dirt and dust from the alien planet, along with his own dark blue blood. He had managed to pull himself up from laying in his own blood to trembling on his hands and knees, and looked as if he didn’t know what to do next. Torq briefly entertained the idea of kicking him over, but figured it would be like stepping on a dead pyjak—pointless and more mess than it was worth. 

“Hey.”

The turian looked up, surprised to see a krogan standing in front of him.

“You seen my guns?”

The turian gave him a blank stare. Torq thought it was a perfectly logical question.

“W…what?”

“My guns. You seen ‘em?”

“I…what…” the turian looked blearily around. “…no…”

“Damn. Oh well,” Torq started to walk away.

“W-wait!” the turian called after him, then broke into a fit of wet coughs.

Torq turned to face the turian again, “What?”

“P…please…help me…” he tried to stand, but couldn’t rise past his knees.

“Oh? So you won’t risk yourself for a ‘damn krogan,’ but I’m expected to help you, no questions?”

The turian winced, but Torq couldn’t tell if it was from pain or his words. 

“S-sorry…I didn’t mean-”

“Yes, you did,” Torq interrupted. “And you insult me by denying it. Rot under this alien sun, turian.”

“No, please!” Desperation rang in the turian’s voice. “My sister…Have you seen my sister?”

Sister? Huh. The turians did have the same green facial markings. Maybe that was a clan thing. Torq glanced around the crater again.

“Nope. Don’t see her.”

“W-what? No! She has…to be…somewhere…”

“Well, she sure as hell isn’t _here,_ ” Torq back to the turian, and was surprised to see he had gotten to his feet, unsteady and trembling, with a look of determination in his eyes.

“We have to find her,” his voice was stronger and more steady.

“We?” Torq asked. “Who the hell is ‘we?’ I just want my guns. Give me one good reason I should help you.”

“Vitana, my sister, saved your life. The least you could do is make sure she’s unhurt,” he started limping for the edge of the crater, holding his side.

“No, the least I can do is leave you to die and go my own way.”

“Oh, and which way would that be?” the turian snapped.

Torq stopped. He hadn’t thought about that. 

“There’s an atmosphere, so there’s gotta be someone living on this rock. I’ll just pick a direction and walk.”

“A sound and wise plan,” the turian said dryly. “You’ve really thought this through.”

“Another word from you and I’ll hit you so hard, you’ll go back into orbit.” Torq snorted and trudged away, climbing out of the crater to look over the wide landscape. The land was dry and barren, covered with small rocky hills the same red-grey as the dust from the crater. Small, shrubby plants riddled the shady parts of the hills, and Torq couldn’t see any wildlife, or any movement at all. There was absolutely no sign of civilization. 

“So, which way are you walking?” The turian, much to Torq’s surprise and irritation, had managed to climb out of the crater after him, and was even steady on his feet, though he was still holding his side and breathing heavily.

“The hell does it matter to you?” Why couldn’t this annoying turian have gone and died like a normal alien? 

“Oh, no reason,” the turian said too calmly. “I was just wondering if you would be following those hoverjet tracks.” 

Wait. …What? Torq could see no such thing. “You’re pulling my leg, turian.”

“Over there,” the turian pointed between two hills. “See how the dirt and dust has been blown aside to reveal bare rock? You don’t see that anywhere else in this landscape. Some sort of hover vehicle has passed through there, and you can see the disturbance in the soil all the way to the crash site. There’s no sign of my sister here, so she must have been taken by whoever was in that vehicle. Let’s go.” He headed for the “trail” left by the supposed hoverjet, moving at a pretty brisk pace for a limping, half-dead turian.

Personally, Torq couldn’t see what he was talking about. All the rocks and dirt looked the same to him, but one direction was as good as another, and on the off chance the turian was right, he’d have a way off this rock. Perhaps, if the female Vitana had been taken instead of getting spattered or thrown miles away from the re-entry, whoever had taken her had also taken his guns. Still, he wasn’t about to let a turian have the last word.

“If you lead us into the middle of nowhere to die of starvation,” he warned as he lumbered after the turian. “I will tear off your crest and use it as a back scratcher.”

* * *

The alien sun had set by the time Sevrek found the end of the trail he’d been tracking, and in that time, he and the krogan hadn’t said a word to each other. 

“Huh,” the krogan broke the silence. “Looks like you weren’t full of shit after all.”

The two were crouched behind the rise of a hill, looking at the batarian encampment nestled in the valley below them. Sevrek didn’t reply, eyes narrowing as he carefully examined the batarians below. They wore no matching uniform, but the way their base was arranged was all too familiar to Sevrek, especially the sturdy, well guarded building in the center.

“That a prison down there?”

Sevrek shook his head. “Slavers. I wiped out camps like this while in the military. This is a small base, meant for short term storage before the slaves are shipped somewhere else, usually an auction or more permanent housing.”

_And Vitana is down there…_

Sevrek tightened his mandibles and studied the encampment below. The last time he had cleaned out a camp like this, he’d had the entire 146th battalion with him. Now it was only an unarmed krogan stranger and himself, outnumbered thirty to one, and no matter how he tried to fool himself, he was still severely injured. Pain still blossomed along his side and leg with every movement, and though the bleeding had finally stopped, he knew he would lose any kind of a fair fight. Hell. Maybe any kind of fight.

“That turret,” Sevrek finally said. “If I could get to it, I could use it to tear apart the whole camp.”

“Gonna have a hell of a time getting to it.”

“That’s why I need you as a distraction.”

The krogan looked at him, surprised. “What?”

Sevrek pointed. “If you attack there and draw the batarians away, I can get to the turret and tear them apart from behind.”

“What’s to stop me from getting torn apart by that same turret while you’re trying to get to it?”

“If you attack at that point, the slave housing will be between you and the turret, and they won’t want to risk losing their slaves. No, they’ll attack you on foot.” Sevrek noted gratefully that they hoverjet was unarmed. One less thing to worry about. “Once I have the turret, they’ll leave you to try and overwhelm me. You need to get inside that building and free the slaves. They’ll help us overthrow the camp.”

The krogan looked out over the camp, then back at Sevrek with a calculating look. “You’re putting a lot of trust in me here. How do you know I’ll hold my end of the attack? How do I know you’ll hold yours?”

“I want my sister back. We _both_ want off this rock. If you walked down there, injured, unarmed, do you think those slavers would kindly call for a shuttle and send you on your way? No, the only way either of us will get what we want is to kill them and take over. We have to trust each other, even just temporarily, and work together.” Sevrek expected him to remain suspicious and even argue the point, but instead the krogan looked thoughtful and regarded Sevrek with an expression Sevrek didn’t recognize from his limited knowledge of krogan body language.

“You’re actually thinking of doing this. The two of us are going to kill a hundred batarians.”

Sevrek nodded solemnly.

The krogan laughed, taking Sevrek by surprise.

“You’ve got a hell of a quad for a turian, I’ll give you that!” He slapped Sevrek on the back, driving the turian to his knees, only able to stand once the pain cleared.

“Yes, well…thank you. I think.” He looked up at the star-strewn sky. “The first moon set about an hour ago. We probably don’t have much time before the second moon sets. Once it’s down, we attack.”

“Dark of night, I like that. Good strategy,” the krogan said. “And I attack while you go sneaking.”

“After which, I’ll attack from the turret. Then you go release the slaves. How are you at hacking locks?”

“I haven’t met a lock that could keep me out,” he said with the air of someone who hadn’t met a door that could withstand nine-hundred pounds of charging krogan, lock or no lock.

“Good. Move out.” He paused as the krogan started to leave. “And…my name is Sevrek. By the way.”

The krogan looked back at him, expression hidden by shadows. After a moment, he nodded. “Torq,” he said, then turned and headed down the hill. Sevrek sighed and moved to his own position.

The going was slower than Sevrek liked. Even while moving slowly and carefully so he didn’t rupture anything further, he only managed to get to the edge of the batarian camp just as the second moon sank below the hills. Sevrek knelt behind an outcropping of rock, taking a moment to catch his breath and rest. Minutes passed as the darkness deepened, the valley quiet apart from the low murmur of batarian voices and trudging footsteps.

A roar split the night, followed by a crash that Sevrek could feel through the ground. Shouts joined in, along with running feet, and soon the camp was alive with commotion. There was another roar, followed by gunshots.

Sevrek peeked out from behind the rock. As he predicted, the slavers manning the turret were abandoning their posts and drawing submachine guns.

Sloppy. A turian soldier would never abandon his post so readily, in case his enemy was being clever and deceptive, just like Sevrek was right now. He clenched his teeth and rose to his feet, then headed for the turret. He was out in the open and felt exposed, relying on the fact that he was moving slowly to keep the slavers from noticing him over the distraction of Torq. Thirty feet from the turret…twenty…fifteen…

“Hey! You!” A gruff batarian swing his assault rifle toward Sevrek. “Get away from there!”

Sevrek swore and burst into a sprit, adrenaline overriding pain. Bullets tore into the dirt where he had been a second before, but three leaping strides got him aboard the turret. It sprang to life in his hands, and with a wicked gleam in his eyes, he swung the double barrels around and tore through a whole line of batarians.

Sevrek couldn’t see what Torq was doing, but he could hear the krogan’s occasional roars and laughs over the gunfire. He quickly put it out of his mind, however, focusing on the waves of batarians trying to get at him. Most were smart enough to not try and get close to him, trying to shoot him instead. But Sevrek had anticipated this and was crouched down behind the turret controls, eyes barely peeking out, and batarian machine guns were terrible for sniping. He focused on catching any slaver foolish enough to be in the open and tore apart whatever cover he could.

A biotic glow lit up the night and an asari sent a batarian flying. The slaves! Humans, asari, salarians, and even a handful of drell were swarming out of the building, still outnumbered, but taking the slavers by surprise.

The tide began to turn.

Even though they still outnumbered the slaves, the batarians were becoming more disorganized. The added chaos was making it difficult for Sevrek to concentrate on a single target, and he was slowly becoming aware that he had ripped the wound in his side open again. He felt blood under his battered armor, trickling warm and wet down his side and leg. He ignored it. Spirits…if they could just manage to drive the slavers back into the hills, then they could set up a defensive-

Something grabbed the back of his carapace and jerked him out of the turret, throwing him to the ground. A batarian had managed to sneak behind his position and now leered down at him. Sevrek tried to rise, but a booted foot stomped down on his throat, keeping him grounded and cutting off his air. He stared at the barrel of a gun pointed directly between his eyes while he clawed uselessly at the foot, feeling his heart race and his lungs burn.

“Burn in hell, turian.”

The slaver’s head exploded.

A moment seemed to pass before the body crumpled, falling onto Sevrek, but at least relieving the pressure off his throat.

“Look! I found my gun!”

Coughing and gasping, Sevrek turned his head to find Torq ambling toward him and waving a shotgun.

“Figured now that I’d done my part of the job, I’d see if you were dead yet,” he casually pulled the dead batarian off Sevrek and grabbed the turian’s arm, yanking him to his feet. Sevrek didn’t think he could have stood up otherwise. “Well, your crazy-ass plan worked. Now what?”

“Not…over yet,” Sevrek coughed. They were winning, but the battle was still raging. He took a step and stumbled, one leg giving out and dropping him to one knee. “Get me…to the turret.”

Torq hauled him to his feet again and led him to the turret. 

“You’re not gonna pass out on me, are you?” he asked.

“No, no,” Sevrek got himself into position, using the turret controls to support himself. “Just…watch my back.”

Later, he would find it strange that he had asked this stranger, a krogan to guard his back while he fought to his very limits of pain and exhaustion, and trusted the krogan to protect him without a second thought. He would find it even stranger that Torq complied, defending Sevrek with everything he had, even though it may have been much faster and easier to shove the turian aside and take over the turret himself to finish the battle. 

As things stood, they fought together as a team, complimenting each other seamlessly. Sevrek tore through the remaining batarians and Torq guarded him, picking off stragglers, while the freed slaves liberated the encampment. 

Sevrek clung to the turret like a lifeline, both to keep himself upright and to keep himself focused and it wasn't until Torq literally pulled him away from the controls did he realize the remaining slavers had retreated into the hills. 

"Hey. It's over. Relax." Torq looked down at Sevrek, who was blinking blearily up at him. "Keep going like that and you'll-"

Sevrek didn't hear what it was that would happen to him, instead passing out cold at the krogan’s feet.  
There wasn’t much medi-gel left by the time Torq got back to the building that had been the slaves’ housing. Most of it had been used up, being carefully administered by an asari and a human who both looked like they probably knew what they were doing. 

“Hey,” Torq slung Sevrek off his shoulder and laid him out on the floor. “Pretty sure this turian is dying. Fix him.”

“A lot of people are dying,” the asari replied wearily, not looking up from her work on a salarian.

“I thought you’d be more understanding, as this is the guy who saved all your asses.” His voice took on a threatening tone. “Fix him.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” the human said kindly before the asari could snap a reply, coming over to examine Sevrek. She knelt beside him, pulling off chunks of his ruined armor, and went to work. Torq folded his arms and leaned against the wall, waiting.

“You’re him, right?”

“Huh?” Torq looked up, then down at the injured salarian addressing him. He was sitting on the ground, back against the wall, the asari pulling bullets out of his skinny leg. 

“You’re him,” the salarian clarified. “The krogan who saved us.”

“Hell,” Torq shrugged, then gestured to the unconscious turian on the floor. “It was his plan. I just smashed in a few doors.”

“You freed us.”

“I smashed in doors.”

“You armed us.”

“I was looking for my guns,” he felt the shotgun at the base of his back and the assault rifle resting on his hump, as if reassuring himself they were still there. “Anything that wasn’t my gun I threw at one of you.”

The salarian shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. …Thank you. Now I have a chance of seeing my family again.”

That was too much information, Torq thought, and it made him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to know this salarian’s problems, even if it was in gratitude. What the hell had happened to his life? Last week he was getting off of Tuchunka in search of interesting things to kill and today he was taking orders and rescuing turians and had salarians thanking him. Had the galaxy turned upside down?

“He’s stable,” the human working on Sevrek said, wiping blue blood off her hands. “There’s not much more I can do for him now, but with proper medical treatment, he’ll make a full recovery.”

Apparently, the galaxy _had_ turned upside down because Torq felt a swell of relief at her words. Relief! That a _turian_ wasn’t dead! Sure, the guy had pushed aside life-threatening injuries without a word of complaint, then come up with a plan that was insane enough to be interesting and clever enough to work, and actually had the quad to carry it out. Not to mention he had the stamina and willpower to see his plan out to the end, only collapsing to die when the job was done. That kind of stubborn determination was almost krogan.

But still! A _turian!_

The human was looking at him like she wanted a response. 

“Oh,” Torq finally said. “Good. Good to hear.” 

She smiled and moved Sevrek over with the other wounded, making him comfortable.

“Oh, hey,” Torq said suddenly. “The turian thought his sister was here. Seen a female turian come in? Woulda been today.”

“I did!” the salarian said excitedly. The asari hushed him sternly and told him to hold still.

“Where is she?”

The salarian shrugged, but the human shook her head. “They took all the turians on the last transport. She would have been sent out with the others. I’m sorry, but…if she was here, she’s gone now.”

“Gone where?” Torq asked. “Where have they been shipping you all off to?”

“We don’t know,” the salarian replied. “They move us out species by species, for the most part. Krogan went out last week. It seems they took the turians today.”

“How? I didn’t see signs of a frigate. No good place to land one, either.”

“There’s a settlement east of us,” the asari finally said. “They must have ships there. Other than that…I don’t know.”

“What, that’s it?”

“We didn’t exactly have access to much information,” the asari snapped.

“You’ve got information now, don’t you?” He gestured to the terminals in the very room they were standing in. “Didn’t you get something out of those?”

“If you haven’t noticed,” the asari huffed. “We’ve been busy shouting, fighting, and dying. We were a little pressed for time.”

“And it’s encrypted,” the human said. “I tried to get in already.”

“Encrypted? With batarian software? Please,” the salarian scoffed. “I spent some time as a hacker for a company on Illium. Batarians have terrible security. …Well, on their software, at least. Am I done, Doc? Good. Help me up!”

Torq eyed the injured salarian. Suicide coups and saving turians was weird enough. But playing crutch to a salarian? That was a whole new level of crazy that he wasn’t prepared to visit. Luckily, he didn’t have to. The human came over and helped him up and over to the terminal. 

“Much better! Hm…Let’s see…” He began to mutter to himself as his fingers flew across the terminal. “Yes, yes…hm…clever…no…ah…yes, yes…aha!” The screen on the terminal changed, popping up with a large chart, containing information on the nearby settlement, access codes for the slaver owned ships, coordinates for drop off locations for each species and much more.

Not bad, Torq had to admit. …For a salarian. He couldn’t bring himself to say it, however, and simply grunted and copied all the information onto his omni-tool. He could find transport off this rock at the settlement and the rest of the info he’d give to Sevrek when the turian woke up. Then they’d part ways.

But first…first it was time to take a break. Sevrek was out cold, so Torq couldn’t give the data to him, and he was starting to admit to himself that he was injured, in pain, and needed to rest. 

“Morning,” He finally said. “Morning, we leave for that settlement.” And with that, he left the room (through a door that had been smashed wide open), found a cot, and went to sleep.

 

Torq awoke to the sound of gunfire. 

He had a moment of grogginess, then heaved himself to his feet and grabbed his rifle off his back.

“What’s going on!” he roared, charging through the door and back into the wide entryway of the building.

There were batarians everywhere. As Torq watched, the salarian hacker took a shotgun blast to the face and collapsed. All around him, there was shooting, fighting, screaming, dying. One strangled roar of fury caught Torq’s attention over the rest of the commotion. The batarians were grabbing the injured that couldn’t run away and hauling them out of the building. Among them was Sevrek, shouting vulgarities and fighting with everything he had left. A batarian struck him in the head and the turian crumpled, falling still.

Oh, hell no. These damn slavers were _not_ going to undo all the work Torq had done. He roared and started shooting batarians. Shouts of “the krogan!” went up among the slavers, and Torq found himself looking down the barrels of enough guns to worry even him. He ran for cover just as the fire started flying. Bullets broke through his armor and he felt the sting of small, high-velocity metal piercing his hump. He took cover behind a stack of storage crates barely large enough to conceal him and started firing back at the slavers in short, controlled bursts. He couldn’t move out from his cover any longer than the time it took to make a shot, however, and was kept to picking off slavers one at a time, if he was lucky.

As suddenly as it had started, the gunfire stopped. Torq peered out from behind the crates and saw the dead, dying, and injured. Not a living batarian in sight.

“What the hell happened?”

A frightened human looked over at him. “The slavers…they…they…came back!”

“Yeah, I see that,” Torq snorted. “What the hell happened?”

“I’m afraid it’s my fault,” an asari stepped forward, nursing an injured arm. Was it the same asari as earlier? He couldn’t tell. Hell, they all looked the same, anyway.

“Your fault? What’d you do?”

“I sent out a distress beacon. The batarians must have picked it up and decided to take what they could before help arrived. I…I’m sorry,” the asari looked away, upset. “I didn’t think they’d respond like this.”

“What’d they take?” Torq frowned as the asari stammered for a bit, looking for a reply, but a drell limped into the room and answered for her.

“About half the wounded are missing, and a handful of uninjured,” he said, looking grim. “They loaded them into the hoverjet and left.”

“The hoverjet?” Torq asked. 

“Gone,” the drell confirmed.

“How the hell do we get out of this piece of shit camp and back to civilization?”

“Until the distress beacon is answered…we cannot,” the drell said calmly.

Torq smashed a metal crate into pieces with a single blow and stormed from the room.

* * *

Sevrek strained his arms, pressing against the cart with all his strength, throwing his weight behind it and trying to get the damn ore-filled cart to move.

He didn’t know how long he had been working at the Element Zero mine. Was it days? Weeks? Months? He couldn’t tell. The moon they were on had a slow orbit, no atmosphere, not even in the above-ground facility, and he spent most of his time underground anyway, making time meaningless here. 

After Sevrek had been knocked out by the batarian slavers, he had woken up on this Spirits-forsaken moon. His injuries had been healed, making him question how long he’d been unconscious, and he’d been put into an envirosuit. Once he was awake, a VI in the helmet of his suit had told him in a calm, feminine voice “Work as instructed, or the VI in this suit will deactivate, including all life support, and you will die.” Well, that certainly was motivating. 

The eezo mine used only turians as workers, Spirits knew why, though he guessed it had to do with a turian’s resistance to radiation. The first time he had tried to communicate to one of them, the suit’s VI had chattered out a warning, instructing him to desist further contact with fellow slaves or the suit would deactivate, including all life support, and he would die. 

Sevrek had considering calling the suit on its threat, wondering if it was a bluff, until he had watched a fellow turian defy orders and slowly die right in front of him. The suit had then instructed him to dispose of the body to keep the mine shaft clear.

He had tried to ask the suit questions, but it did not answer, except once. When he had asked it why there were no guards or slavers present to supervise them, the VI had told him “None were needed.” He supposed the most effective guard was the one who stayed with you at all times. 

So he worked, he ate some sort of dextero-protein supplement inserted directly into the suit, he slept (barely), and he cursed the sky when he saw it, a dim, blue neuron star hovering above them.

Eezo mines were usually found in systems after a star had gone supernova, hammering all celestial bodies in range with radiation. The radiation made eezo mining very expensive because everything had to be done robotically, or you would kill your workers with radiation poisoning. 

Unless you had an endless army of slave labor, apparently. Then anyone could mine eezo, without worrying about expensive equipment. 

Which is why Sevrek was in some cramped mine shaft, shoving at a cart that was _supposed_ to drive itself, but didn’t, while a VI gently reminded him that if he did not transport the ore to the collection shaft, the suit would deactivate, including all life support, and he would die.

He had gotten very tired of that warning.

He put all his strength into the cart. It kept him from thinking. He didn’t have to think about all those people he’d watched die. He didn’t have to think about his fate here, doomed to either suffocate at the whim of the suit or slowly die from radiation poisoning. He didn’t have to think about the strange krogan who had saved him, all for nothing. He didn’t have to think about his sister and how he’d failed her.

It was easier not to think.

Sevrek pushed the cart.

* * *

Vitana was excited. Three weeks she had spent on this terrible eezo mine. Of course, only three days had she spent actually mining, before she had called the suit on its threat to deactivate. Once the VI had killed itself, she had a few minutes before suffocating, during which she hacked the suit and replaced the dead VI with a VI she had stored on her omni-tool. A little unorthodox, she knew, and probably not something the mine owners had thought of. It wasn’t every day that a slave was a professional hacker who built VIs in her spare time.

The rest of her three week stay she had spent in the facility above the mine, where the slaves were brought in, the eezo shipped out, and the slaves were allowed to sleep and restock on dextero-protein. She had been busy avoiding security cams and hacking every piece of computer equipment she could find, slowly sabotaging the facility. Vitana had whipped together a series of viruses and implanted them in every mainframe in the compound. All she needed now was access to the VI core that ran the facility and the mine. Once she had that, she could implant the virus trigger that would start a chain reaction to knock out the power, kill the VI core, replace the VI with a new one that she had hacked together, free all the turian slaves, and get everyone the hell out of here!

She was quite proud of herself. Her plan had been running quite smoothly, and was stuck on only one last hitch: access to the VI core itself. The only security bots in the entire compound were stationed in front of the entrance to the core, and they carried very real and very lethal guns, and she had no way to deactivate them until she could get inside the core and plant her trigger virus. She thought she was stuck until the new ship had arrived a few hours ago.

It was a small frigate, only big enough to carry a few people. It wasn’t a slave ship, or a supply ship, or one of the transports that took away the unrefined eezo. It had landed stealthily further away and its occupant was now circling the facility, looking for a way in.

The stranger was an armed krogan. The security bots wouldn’t last a second against him!

Yes, Vitana was very excited, indeed.

* * *

_This is stupid,_ Torq thought. _This place doesn’t make any sense._

He had circled the building three times, and there were no doors. How were you supposed to get slaves and workers inside if there was no way inside?

But Torq was stubborn, and he wasn’t about to turn back now, not after all the work he’d put into getting here. It had taken a week to get off that damn planet they’d crashed in to, a week to get his hands on a ship and a new suit, and a week to find this damn place. So he sure as hell wasn’t giving up now. He’d _make_ a door if he needed to.

Not that he was doing this out of some noble desire to save Sevrek, he kept telling himself, who was here, according to the data he’d gotten from the batarian harddrive. No, the slavers had just pissed him off that much, so he needed to get back at them any way he could. Now, if only he could find a way into this damn building…

“Hello?” A voice crackled to life on his suit’s intercom. “Can you hear me? Did I get the right frequency?”

“The hell? Who are you?” 

“Oh, good! I did! Why are you here?”

Torq snorted. “I’m not saying anything until I know who you are.”

“Oh! Sorry! I’m an escapee mine worker.”

“An escaped slave?” he asked.

“I’ve been trying to avoid that word,” the voice replied. “But yes. Why have you come?”

“To bust open some batarian heads!”

“Oh…” the voice faltered. “I’m afraid there are no batarians here. Just turians and security bots.” 

“Then I’ll bash _their_ heads in!”

“The turians or the bots?”

“The bots, dumbass.”

“Oh, good!” the voice became excited again. “So you’ve come to save us!”

“Did I say that?” Torq snapped.

“No, but that’s what the end result will be. Get to the roof! That’s where the entrance is! I’ll meet you there!” The voice flickered out.

Torq looked up at the tall building. “…Great.”

In the end, he had to return to his ship and land it on the roof. The moment he touched down, alarms started blaring and lights started flashing. He pulled the shotgun off his back, just in time to aim it at the opening cargo doors.

“Hey, hey!” the suited turian held up her hands defensively. “It’s me! And why’d you have to go and land on the roof? You’ve set off all the alarms!”

“I sure as hell couldn’t climb up here! What’d you expect me to do? Fly?”

“Well, too late now. Let’s go!” She grabbed his hand and started running.

“What the-hey!” He scrambled after her, surprised at how strong the little turian was.

“Warning:” A new voice appeared on his intercom, too calm and polite to be a real person. “This facility has been breached. Security bots have been deployed. Retreat now, or all envirosuit VIs will be deactivated.”

“Hurry!” the turian yelled, leading him through the twisting hallways. They rounded a corner to meet a spray of bullets, and the turian scrambled behind Torq with a yelp. 

“Bring it on!” Torq roared, and with one charge and two shotgun blasts, it was over.

“Hostile activity detected. Shutting down all envirosuit VIs. Hostile forces are asked to exit the facility.”

“Run!” The female turian shouted. “Run, run, run! This way!” 

She led him through the halls, Torq taking out any security bots they ran into. They started seeing the occasional turian, doubled over, on their knees, or on the ground, suffocating. 

“Almost there! We have to get through that door!”

A dozen security bots blocked their way, standing in a nice, neat line. Torq grinned.

“Bad move, varren-shit!” Torq put his head down and charged, ignoring the bullets hitting him head on, and mowed down the line of bots, metal crunching and parts flying. He didn’t stop once the bots were down, instead picking up speed and momentum, and nine hundred pounds of krogan tore through the door to the AI core. 

The female turian darted in after him, activating her omni-tool and running right to the AI core itself. 

“Alert: Access to this area is restricted to authorized personnel only. Please exit immediately.”

“Almost…Almost…” Images and numbers flashed on the display and the turian’s omni-tool faster than Torq could read them. “There!”

Suddenly, all light went out, apart from the orange glow from the omni-tool, and Torq felt lighter, the power and gravity both cutting out.

“Now just a moment…” Her omni-tool flashed again and everything came back on. “Aha!”

“What just happened?” Torq asked.

“I just took over!” The turian’s helmet hid her face, but Torq could hear the glee in her voice. “Let me just give the new VI some instructions…and…there!”

A new voice came to life over the intercom, still female, but with the dual tonality that turian voices had.

“Attention all former staff: this facility has been hijacked and conquered. The VI in your suits has been replaced. You are now instructed to exit the mine and return to the above ground facility. A distress signal is being broadcast and a message is being sent to Palavan at this very moment. Rescue should arrive shortly.” 

“Not bad,” Torq admitted.

“Thank you,” she replied. “Now, if you don’t mind, is there any way you could give me a lift in that ship of yours?”

“Huh?” Torq asked, surprised. “I’d think you’d be down here getting everyone organized and ready for evac.” He at least assumed she’d want to take credit and get recognition for the rescue.

“Oh, no. I’ve done what I’ve can, but I’m in a little bit of trouble with the turian military. 

Even though he knew she couldn’t see his face through his helmet, Torq eyed her skeptically. One did not just get into a “little” trouble with _any_ military. 

“What’d you do?”

“Oh, it’s stupid. Said the wrong thing to the wrong person and got into a very public fight with some very important people,” she said lightly. “…And there _might_ have been a virus or two. Nothing harmful! Just…embarrassing. For them, not me.”

That made sense, Torq supposed, though he was still suspicious.

“Oh! And my name is Vitana, by the way. What’s yours?”

Torq gave a start. “Vitana? Sevrek’s sister?”

Vitana whipped her head around to look at him. “Wha…but…h-how do you know my brother?”

“We tracked you from the crash site. Then Sevrek got his ass caught and I had to follow you all here.”

“He…but…you’re the krogan from the ship!” she said in sudden recognition. “And…he…Sevrek’s alive? I just thought…when they didn’t take him from the crash…I thought he was…” her voice broke. “I…I need a moment.” 

She turned away, and even through the suit, Torq could tell her hands were shaking. He looked away. Emotional people made him uncomfortable, and he wanted no part in it.

“You…you said he was here?” she said once she pulled herself together.

“Should be. Came in a few weeks ago.”

“And you came to save him?”

Torq was both uncomfortable and disgruntled now. “I came to kill batarians.”

“Well,” Vitana said sweetly. “As you didn’t find any batarians, would you consider a rescue instead?”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Credits,” Vitana said easily. “Sevrek is filthy rich.”

Torq thought about that. He was only renting the ship he came in, and compensation would be nice. “Done,” he said, and sealed the deal with a handshake.

“Now, how do we find Sevrek?” he asked.

Before Vitana could answer, the problem solved itself as a breathless Sevrek sprinted into the room.

“Vitana?” he asked, his panting audible over the comm. “I knew…I mean, I hoped…I recognized the new VI and…and…”

“Sevrek!” She threw herself at him, wrapping him in a hug, somewhat awkward through the suits. 

“Sevrek,” Torq acknowledged with a nod.

“Torq?” Sevrek asked, surprised.

“Torq!” Vitana exclaimed, glad to finally know the krogan’s name.

“Vitana,” Torq confirmed. “Well, isn’t this just _dandy._ Now let’s get the hell off this shithole moon.” 

“I couldn’t agree more,” Sevrek said, reluctantly releasing Vitana.

“Good,” Torq replied and left the room, the two turians following. 

A month ago, Torq had been killing pyjaks for minimum wage, and now he had saved who-knew-how-many aliens, destroyed an illegal eezo mine, and possibly crippled an entire slave ring. And he was even going to get paid! Yes, his life had turned upside down, and he suspected the same was true of Sevrek and Vitana. 

Then again, maybe that wasn’t so bad.


End file.
